Creating and Visualizing Contacts

Within 3D-CAD you are able to create face contacts within the model and visualize them using the Contact Display Options. This capability allows you to inspect the model to ensure that all the required contacts are created before the model is converted into parts.

  1. In the Visibility Toolbar, select (Model Visibility) and activate All Edges.
  2. Create the part contacts:
    1. In the 3D-CAD tab, select all body groups.
    2. Right-click one of the selected bodies and select Boolean > Imprint.
    3. In the Imprint Bodies: Imprint 1 dialog, select OK.
      The default Imprint Options and Imprint Type are acceptable for this tutorial. When the imprint is executed, contacts are created for all coincident faces which satisfy a tolerance of 1.0E-8 m.
Inspect and locate potential missing contacts:
  1. In the 3D-CAD tree, right-click the Features > Imprint 1 node and select Show Contacts.
  2. In the Contact Display Options dialog, right-click the first Imprint 1 object in the Feature column and select Search Selected Feature(s) For Contacts.
  3. In the Additional Contact Pairs From: Selected Feature Input Bodies sub-menu, set Proximity to 1.0E-5 m and click Search.
    When you click Search Simcenter STAR-CCM+ checks the distance between coincident faces for all of the bodies contained in the Imprint 1 feature. Any coincident faces that have a distance less than or equal to the defined proximity are displayed in the Additional Contact Pairs From: Selected Feature Input Bodies dialog.

    For this case a contact pair is found between the PCB and Memory Chip 7. This is a missing contact as the remaining Memory Chips already produce a contact with the PCB. A contact for Memory Chip 7 can be created by using a larger tolerance when creating an imprint between the Memory Chip and the PCB.

  4. Select all Contact Groups and click Create Filter, then click Cancel.


  5. In the Contact Display Options dialog, click Close.
  6. Create the missing contact:
    1. In the 3D-CAD tree, right-click on Design Filters > Design Filter 1 and select Imprint Faces.
    2. In the Imprint Faces dialog, set the following properties:
      Property Setting
      Imprint Type Tolerant Edges
      Tolerance 1.0E-5 m
    3. Click OK.
  7. Multi-select the Features > Imprint 1 and ImprintFace 1 nodes.
To inspect only the contacts for these two features:
  1. Right-click one of the selected nodes and select Show Contacts.
    You can also inspect the contacts on the whole model by clicking (Show Contact Table) in the Visibility Toolbar.
  2. Create a filter:
    1. In the Contact Display Options dialog, click (Filter Contact Pairs).
    2. For the Filter Body Name select Contains + PCB.
    3. Click Apply.


  3. Inspect the Memory Chip 7|PCB contacts:
    1. In the Contact Display Options, select the Contact groups > Memory Chip 7|PCB node.
    2. Click (Display Contact Pairs In Auxiliary Scene).
    3. Click (Isolate Selected Contact Pairs).
    4. Rotate the Auxiliary Scene to visualize the contact pairs.
  4. In the Contact Display Options, click Close.
  5. In the 3D-CAD tab click Update 3D-CAD then Close 3D-CAD.